The Lobster Talks Podcast by Lobster Capital

Most people think GPS is “good enough”, until you realize 90% of human and object movement happens where GPS doesn’t work at all. Warehouses, hospitals, tunnels, battlefields… completely blind spots.

In this episode of Lobster Talks, Raymond Lee (Twill, YC) sits down with John Ferrara, solo founder of Juxta (YC S25), who’s building a Universal Positioning System... a no-hardware GPS alternative that works indoors, underground, and anywhere humans or machines move.

We break down the tech, the wedge into logistics and defense, and how he raised $5M at a $40M cap...

YC pivot. Creator taxes. Real savings.

Fernando from Beluga Labs explains how AI moves tax planning from “black box” to one-click, year-round optimization, starting with the messiest edge case: content creators.

In today’s episode, Nikki hosts Fernando (Beluga Labs, YC S24) on building AI-first tax planning for creators, why they pivoted in-batch, and how YC’s “light cone” advice shaped a focused GTM.

We cover messy creator income, quarterly taxes, line-by-line deductions, and fundraising with discipline…not vibes.

You’ll learn:

- Why creators are the hardest (and best) wedge for...

A YC insider walked away from the best seat in the Valley… to build “prank call” voice AI that now powers serious enterprise sales. 

Simple AI started as a consumer assistant that people used to troll their friends—and turned into a phone agent platform that’s replacing entire call centers.

In this episode of The Lobster Talks, I sit down with Cat, founder of Simple AI and former YC product lead behind Startup School and YC’s co-founder matching tools. We go deep on the real difference between a business an...

YC F25 just produced one of the wildest Demo Days we’ve seen: AI everywhere, hardware roaring back, and a drone startup raising at ~$200M straight out of the batch. 

If you care about where early-stage markets are really going, this is your field report.

In this episode of The Lobster Talks Podcast, we break down YC F25 Demo Day just hours after it wrapped. 

We walk through the real themes behind the noise: AI as default, healthcare and finance getting rebuilt, deeptech and defense going mainstream, and why some YC v...

YC to 200K users without a marketing budget? HeRA is trying to become the Figma of motion design and put After Effects on notice.

This is a builder’s story: fast pivots, AI-native product, and a bold bet to scale from Berlin, not SF.

In this episode, Chia, co-founder & CTO of HeRA breaks down how they pivoted into AI motion design, grew to hundreds of thousands of users, and why they’re betting on an onsite Berlin team post-YC.

We cover PMF vs. virality, the...

YC Fall ’25 Demo Day isn’t here yet, but the signal is already loud. We went through 150+ companies and picked the ones we’d fight to get allocation in.

From AI-native banks and eBay killers to fusion reactors in space and crowdsourced drug discovery, this episode is a pre–Demo Day breakdown of YC’s Fall ’25 batch. We go category by category (B2B, Consumer, Fintech, Healthcare, Industrial/Real Estate) and call our shots before founders hit the stage. No hindsight bias, just real-time conviction.

In this episode, we cover:

Hospitals are bleeding $260 billion a year to denied insurance claims — and AI is making it worse. One YC founder decided to fight back, using AI to beat insurers at their own game.

In this episode, we dive deep into how Aegis, a Y Combinator startup, is using AI agents to help healthcare providers recover billions lost to claim denials. Founder Ong shares his journey from Calcutta to Carnegie Mellon to YC, the inside story of getting into YC at the last minute, and how his team is tackling one of healthcare’s most entrenched prob...

They applied to YC with 90 minutes on the clock—and got in. Then they pivoted into the most operationally gnarly corner of fintech: global payroll. Avi Konduru (Shor) breaks down how AI agents + stablecoins can vertically rebuild EOR, cut costs by an order of magnitude, and expand the market beyond today’s incumbents.

In this episode, we go deep on YC as an ambition amplifier, pivot mechanics under real pressure, price vs. TAM strategy, and why launch videos (done right) are still YC’s most underrated distribution hack.

You’ll learn:

We finally found a voice assistant that actually ships work. Not a demo, not a hype reel—April closes the loop on email and calendar while you’re driving, lifting, or walking to your next meeting.

In this YC-insider conversation, Neha (co-founder of April) breaks down how a narrow, vertical agent can outperform “do-everything” assistants, why dogfooding—not retention dashboards—built their product moat, and what a screen-lite future means for founders and operators. We also cover YC batch dynamics in a crowded voice category, Demo Day strategy, and the roadmap to a true “voice OS.”

A Netflix storage engineer walks into YC and ships an “infinite, shareable disk” on top of S3—30× faster and up to 90% cheaper—then dials GTM for the AI era. This is the file system’s comeback story.

Today I sit down with Hunter Leath (ARL) to unpack how a decade inside AWS + Netflix revealed a gap the hyperscalers won’t close: developers want storage that feels local, scales like S3, and doesn’t nuke the budget. We get into: YC as confidence engine, moving a family to SF, rebuilding for speed, why AWS won’t copy this, and...

YC just changed the rules—and the market is catching up. We break down why seed is the power position, how CVCs are reshaping Series A, and what YC’s new Early Decision really means for founders and investors.

In this episode, we cover Lobster Capital updates (first Series A, first DPI), how we decide follow-ons from an insider vantage point, the rise of “seed-strapping,” Coinbase Ventures x YC’s RFS on Fintech 3.0, and why stablecoins + AI agents may be the next real on-chain wedge. We also unpack YC’s Early Decision—who it actually benef...

A robotaxi playbook… for dirt. Flywheel AI is turning excavators into remotely operated, camera-first machines — collecting the data to make them autonomous next.

In this YC-insider episode, we unpack Flywheel AI’s “Waymo for excavators” strategy: retrofit any machine in hours, deliver value with tele-op now, and use that profitably collected data to train autonomy later. We get into labor shortages, safety economics (OSHA penalties), competitor traps (drive-by-wire only), and how to actually do hardware at YC in 90 days without getting stuck in pilot hell.

You’ll learn

Why constr...

A “cute idea” until it wasn’t: RealRoots walked into YC as an overlooked consumer play and walked out with $9.4M ARR and an oversubscribed round.

Summary: In this YC-insider episode, Dorothy Li (RealRoots) breaks down how AI-powered friendship matchmaking turned into real traction across 80+ cities. We unpack the demo day shock, the stigma shift (friendship ≈ dating 10 years ago), and the manual-to-AI playbook that de-risks consumer. We also cover investor blind spots, GTM math (cold DMs → paid), and why cofounder fit is a “you’ll know in 10 seconds” decision.

You’ll learn:

A YC founder turns a manual, low-IQ grind into an AI agent that finds creators, negotiates terms, and scales UGC—sometimes a little too far. What starts as a viral local-model demo becomes Stormy AI’s end-to-end engine for influencer marketing.

Fresh off YC Demo Day, Robert Lukoszko (Stormy AI) breaks down the pivot, the fundraising blitz, and how agencies are replacing hours of scrolling with autonomous outreach. We get into model-proof moats, why micro-creators beat celebrity accounts, and the coming wave of AI-generated influencers.

You’ll learn:

How...

AI won’t live in chat. The future is headless agents doing real work — and calling humans only when it matters. Dexter Horthy, cofounder of HumanLayer, explains how agent-driven software actually ships.

In this fast, tactical deep-dive, we unpack HumanLayer’s origin story (from failed data tools to paid customers in a week), why frameworks lag real production apps, and the workflow that lets AI agents ship in complex codebases. We cover research-plan-implement loops, context engineering, team process, and how “specs become the new code.”

You’ll learn

- How Huma...

Founders closing rounds before lunch. Investors making handshake commitments in the hallway. A startup with $9M+ ARR and another with $15M ARR lighting up the room. YC Demo Day isn’t a show; it’s a marketplace where speed and execution decide everything.

In this fast, founder-first debrief, we break down what actually happened at the latest YC Demo Day: the subtle format changes (that matter), why the one-minute pitch is only the opener, and how deals really get done. We cover the batch’s AI/devtools tilt, the contrarian bets in defense and hardwa...

A surfer duct-tapes a phone to his board… and ends up saving enterprise couriers 32 seconds per stop. The last meter of delivery — not the last mile — is where the money is.

In this Lobster Talks episode, Ingo Boegemann, co-founder/CEO of truemetrics, breaks down how sensor fusion + mission intelligence turn messy building entrances, courtyards, and wrong pins into precise, repeatable delivery actions. We go deep on Europe vs. US GTM, GDPR constraints (and why the US may unlock even more value), landing whales like GLS, and the unscalable POC that unlocked scale.

You’ll...